The Soil Association welcomes GI report

By Alex Singleton | 15 September 2005

From today's London Daily Telegraph:

Farmers would be better off following the Prince of Wales in growing high-value organic food than producing subsidised crops, a free market think-tank said yesterday.

The Globalisation Institute says Europe's Common Agricultural Policy has been a disaster for the countryside and that the taxation used to fund it represents "theft from the common citizen".

The costs of subsidised agriculture fall on the poor more than any other group in society - the higher taxes and higher food prices cost every person £250 a year.

Developed nations outside Europe lose billions of pounds a year because of the protection that European crops enjoy from world markets, say the authors.

They say there will be continued pressure for the abolition of farm subsidies after the disclosure that most of the money goes to the biggest, most productive farms...

Lord Melchett, of the Soil Association, said: "I have often wondered how long it would be before people who were interested in free markets would notice that organic farming is the only kind that is responding to the market. Look at the subsidies that have gone into GM crops."

He added: "One of the differences farmers who have converted tell us is that they actually begin to meet their customers."